ABSTRACT
Vancouver's renowned attractiveness is more than skin deep. It is a city that has managed to balance its exceptional social and environmental values with local livability needs, notably in relation to access and mobility objectives. This case study considers the City's transportation history that underpin its current objectives, including parking policies, and how they impact on the West End precinct and its three linear ‘Main Street’ communities. The freeway plan prompted a feisty community backlash, and the campaign to stop the freeway from destroying these neighborhoods raged through to the early 1970s. Vancouver's Transportation 2040 Plan is a broad plan, but unlike many other ‘strategic’ plans that treat parking as an afterthought, if they treat it at all, the 2040 Plan locates parking reform as a pivotal urban planning issue. The West End is a cosmopolitan destination and home to over 47,000 people, as couples and small dogs replace families there are fewer people per household.
